MP asks Heritage Committee to summon Canada Soccer coaches to testify

Canada coach Bev Priestman gestures during the Women's World Cup Group B soccer match between Australia and Canada in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, July 31, 2023. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Hamish Blair)

New Democratic Party MP Niki Ashton says she has filed a motion to fellow members of the federal heritage committee to seek the testimony of Canada Soccer national senior team coaches in a search for answers about whether spying on the closed practices of opposing teams has been a systemic practice.

Ashton told TSN in an interview on Thursday that her motion to the committee is to hear evidence from witnesses before the end of September. She said prospective witnesses include women’s team coach Bev Priestman and assistant coaches Jasmine Mander and Joseph Lombardi, plus former men’s team coach John Herdman, who now coaches at TFC.

• Full coverage of the Paris Olympics on TSN.ca

FIFA assessed the Canadian women’s team a six-point penalty at the Paris Games after Lombardi was caught flying a drone two times over New Zealand’s closed practice ahead of their Olympic tournament-opening game, which Canada won 2-1. Lombardi was arrested by French police, jailed for three days, and then sent home to Canada. Mander and Priestman were also sent home.

Canada advanced to the knockout stage of the Olympic tournament despite the scandal and lost to Germany on Saturday. Off the pitch, Canada Soccer said that it hired Sonia Regenbogen, a lawyer with the Toronto law firm Mathews Dinsdale, to investigate the allegations of cheating.

“I think it’s clear this has to be a priority for the committee,” Ashton said. “This isn’t just about what happened at the Olympics. It’s about Canada’s reputation in soccer and in sports. While I appreciate Canada Soccer is taking matters in its own hands, this is beyond the federation. Canadians need to know the full picture of what happened and how to make sure this never happens again. We have to get answers, and we have the power to do that.”

As TSN has reported previously, Canada’s senior and junior national teams have allegedly been spying on other teams’ closed practices since at least 2016, including at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo when the women’s national team won gold.

During a failed attempt to appeal FIFA’s six-point sanction, Canada Soccer provided FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport with several of Priestman’s emails. In March, she emailed a human relations consultant that spying is a widespread practice among the world’s top national teams and can be the difference between winning and losing. Priestman also wrote in her email that Canada’s national men’s program has a “whole operation” of spying on opposing teams.

Ashton said she would also like for the committee to invite officials with Canada Soccer and FIFA to testify. Her motion would be adopted if a majority of the 12-member committee agrees.

Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, who is also a member of the Heritage Committee, said he supports Ashton’s efforts, even though Canada Soccer has said it is committed to fact finding.

“What lawyers are good at is charging a lot but look at what happened with Hockey Canada two years ago,” Waugh said, adding that the committee has more leverage than a lawyer leading Canada Soccer’s investigation to summon prospective witnesses, documents and correspondence.

In 2022, the Heritage Committee opened a study of Hockey Canada’s response to a 2018 allegation of sexual assault that was made by a woman in London, Ont. The woman alleged she had been assaulted by eight players on Canada’s 2018 World Juniors team following a golf and gala event in June 2018.

While Hockey Canada hired Toronto law firm Henein Hutchison Robitaille to investigate, the law firm shut down its probe when London police said in 2019 that they were closing down their own investigation.

After TSN reported the woman in that case had filed a lawsuit, the Heritage Committee began a study of Hockey Canada and both London police and Henein Hutchison Robitaille rekindled their own investigations. Five players have now been charged and are awaiting trial.

“In the Hockey Canada case, the lawyers backed off when London police dropped the case,” Waugh said. “The lawyers didn’t finish their job. We need to get Canada Soccer people and Sport Canada in here to answer questions about who knew what and when.”

Waugh said he wants to know what happened after Priestman emailed Canada Soccer’s human resources consultant.

“What happened with that email? It should have been reported up the chain to Canada Soccer’s board,” Waugh said. “Maybe they did report it, and nothing happened. We need answers and we can’t assume a law firm is going to be completely transparent on this because we don’t know what they specifically have been asked to do. There are a lot of questions here.”

Waugh said if a prospective witness declines an invitation to testify, the committee can issue a subpoena demanding they appear.

“If you are in Canada and you get a subpoena, you have to come,” he said. “It’s the same as if you get a subpoena in a court case.”

If Canada Soccer officials do testify next month, it would be the second time in two years the federation has been scrutinized by the committee.

Last year, after four members of Canada’s women’s team testified the federation had disrespected them and their teammates and drastically cut the women’s team’s budget, the Heritage Committee questioned Canada Soccer officials about the federation’s controversial media and sponsorship contract with the private company Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) and the federation’s funding of the national women’s team.